Spring fever

The crocus season is upon us, once more.
Even though the roofs still wear a thin powdering of frost every morning, it´s the sun shining through the shutters that wakes us up every morning, with a musical background of birds twittering. The buds on the trees are getting ready to burst open at any minute now.
And the heavy sweaters I´ve been wearing all winter are starting to become uncomfortably warm by noon.
So, it´s wardrobe rollover time again.
My closet isn´t big enough to hold all the summer and winter clothes at once, so anything out-of-season gets boxed up for the duration. When seasons change,so does the content of these boxes.
Twice a year, thus, I am forced to go through every garment I own.
That can be an astonishing experience, as in "what´s that?" or "I distinctly disremember buying this".
And it is a great chance to decide if what you pull from the box, or what you are about to put into it, really deserves to take up real estate in that closet.
For me, this spring will be a very special rollover time. When I started on my serious weight loss journey last August, the end of the warm season was approaching already, so, before I could shrink too far out of them, my warm-weather clothes went into storage.
As I had, for many years, preferred my summer clothes to be "airy" (read: loose and fluttering) , there are many things there that were actually oversized even for the bigger me. 
That means that I will, this year, not only check for signs of wear and tear on the clothes as I take them out of the box, I will have to put on every single garment.
Then again, I probably won´t. Most of what went into these boxes last year may be too big at first sight. Which means I´ll end up, perhaps, with a lot more closet space than before. And the local equivalent to Goodwill with several bags full of plus-sized clothing.
It would be, to me, dangerous to keep the big stuff around. When I know I have a full wardrobe somewhere in the big sizes, there´s no reason to restrain myself because I wouldn´t fit into my clothes any more.
So, it´s the same thing as with my wedding ring.
I never again want the pounds to be able to sneak up on me almost unnoticed. If regaining causes really noticeable effects, such as not being able to wear my ring or having to buy bigger pants, I stand a better chance of avoiding it.
Maintaining is a lot about vigilance. As is further condensing myself, which I am still intending to do.

Weeding out the oversized contents of my wardrobe is also a great chance at deciding how many pieces of each I really need. Wearing a different size gives me a chance there that women who remain the same weight all their lives never get.
Most closet clutter does, after all, have something to do with buying more pieces of an item than you really need. Or, with keeping all the barely-worn shirts or blouses or whatever because they are still "theoretically wearable" even though you never would, because you have newer things that are not so out of fashion.
I have a real reason now to evict those offenders, too.
One that satisfies even the packrat in me who cringes at removing anything still in working condition.
I can, now, say "but not for me" and let go.

It feels great.


Julia